The Traveller's Diary

Note to the reader:

This story is both part of a series of stories and a stand-alone. If you wish to read the other stories in this series then please proceed to "To Whom it May Concern" as Part 1 in the series and then to, "A Document Concerning the Ritual Beneath this Church" as Part 2.

Thank you.

The Traveller's Diary

I watched on as the cockroach on my desk fell to the ground and landed on its back, the writhing was silent but felt like it wasn’t. Eventually, two ants crawled from the large hole between where the walls met at a corner and, standing either side of the roach, dragged it away silently into the blackening depths. I heaved a sigh of relief so loud and dry, all the air felt like it had left my body. I was numb.

For years now I had worked for a small time news outlet writing lifestyle pieces and travel blogs here and there. They initially hired me purely based on zeal, almost overlooking the fact I had run my own website with a handsome number of followers for quite some time now. One of my first assignments was to go to the Lascaux Caves and check out what was in there, bringing back an interesting story or two. But this stuff was still very mainstream for me. I didn’t mean to be a pain but I wanted somewhere more remote and more off the map every single time. I wanted to spend time with some unknown tribe in a jungle off the grid, or in the desert under the scorching sun where Eustace Fairfax had gone missing until they eventually found his dead body. (I had read the letters he sent to his sister and was dazzled by the story). They said that unless I could provide somewhere myself, they would continue to assign things to me. So I went out in search of something greater, more extreme and more remote than anywhere I’d ever been. I almost wish I hadn’t now I come to think of it. It was unnerving and, as I sat and watched the space in the wall - I swear it became darker with every passing thought in my head.

It happened about a month ago. I was sitting behind my laptop at my desk as always, doomscrolling on my lunch break, when I came across something really obscure. It was an advertisement for backpackers like myself who wanted to visit a village that still lived as though they were in the dark ages. Most of the people there were farmers and the oddest thing about them is that they still practiced pagan faiths. They had no church, they believed in no monotheistic religion and they were in no way worshippers of Christ. This drew me in further and I sent off my contact details so that I may be one of the lucky people chosen to go to this strange village in the middle of nowhere.

And nowhere was exactly where it was.

I was picked up from my house by a woman from the company who said she would drop me off in the village and collect me again whenever I phoned her (this is why she told me that I should turn off my phone when it wasn’t being used - there was no electricity where I was going). I was going to stay in a home with a family who had kindly letted out their extra room to the company for backpackers to go and explore. “How long’s the drive?” I asked naively, knowing I should have done some research first, but honestly, I had no idea where I was going. I remember telling my boss I had earned this position and when I recounted that I hadn’t been given any information of where it was he told me to be as careful as possible. Everyone and their pet dog offered to come with me but I am an adult woman who can take care of myself.

“Oh, about four or five hours. Don’t worry, we’ll stop for breaks…” She beamed up at me from the driver’s seat and eventually, after some thoughts of probably abandoning the whole thing, I got in beside her. We set off that morning on what was not four or five hours, but happened to be around seven or eight - stops included.

The roads turned from cityscapes to countrysides after an hour or so and I realised it would be winding country roads the rest of the way. The scenery was beautiful, the day was warm but this place was really in the middle of absolutely nowhere. As I saw the towns and cities disappear behind me, my driver tried to make some sort of rough conversation. “Have you ever been on a village break before?” She didn’t look over at me because I imagine that the steering must have been difficult, it wasn’t before long that the roads turned into sleet and mud from the rain the night before. It was just where cars had been before - no road markings, no signs, just an endless track of dirt.

“No, not really. I am more of an exotic traveller…” It was only after I said that out loud that I realised how stupid it must have sounded. Nobody uses the word ‘exotic’ anymore. Did I sound racist? Did she think I was a bad person? I must have reeked of inadequacy. I kept the conversation going for good measure. “How about yourself?” She replied that she simply worked for the company and that they gave her a map and a traveller. Her job was simply to drop them off and pick them up. If there was no phone call in the given time, she would pick them up at the end of the week.

“By the way…” She started. “You seem to be going on an important week too…” Her enthusiasm came through and made me a little bit happier about the prospect of going somewhere that had no running water. “It’s a special celebration of some sort up there. That’s why we were able to convince a family to let a backpacker stay. The village gets some money from us, we send a backpacker and they come back and write about the place in…?” She ended on a questioning side glance to me.

“A local paper…” I finished. She smiled back, looking relieved it wasn’t some obscure blog in the ether of the internet.

I paid attention to the celebration part and was intrigued to see what kind of celebrations those of older religions had as most of them had either gone extinct or were in Asia. A local newspaper fund is not sending you all the way to India to witness a once-in-a-lifetime old world festivity covered in red and gold. If I was going to get a look into the old world, then this would be the only way I could feasibly do it. I tapped my bag with a gentle touch, my disposable cameras were safe. I was going to get experience, story and so much more. I felt so alive in that moment and yet, had to sit completely still as the car bounced around and skidded over muddy tracks in the countryside riddled land.

Hills were covered in green and flowers, lavenders bloomed out of the grass beside the car and cows grazed in the distance. I thought about what a pain it must be to actually live here as we passed some large farming houses. There wasn’t a supermarket for miles. Deeper into the woods and farms, further away from civilisation and far gone from anything considered ‘off the beaten track’, we started to come across these towns that looked as though they were built in the 1200s and nobody had come by to fix them up in all those years. I think my driver must have seen my jaw drop at the sight of a church that stated at its front that it was one of the oldest in the world, made from olden stone bricks, rough cut and jagged from time. “It’s really quite impressive, don’t you think?” She turned to face me as we stopped for coffee in one of these weirdly remote towns.

The coffee shop was almost abandoned and the owner looked like he hadn’t had anyone in all week. It was a light blue within and a child wandered around outside, looking into the window as if to find someone. We ignored the child and walked in. Almost immediately, we were asked what kinds of coffee we wanted and sat down at the far side of the cafe with two cups of cappuccino. “This place…” I started. “It’s so old…” My driver looked pleased with herself as I spoke.

“Ah!” She replied. “We are not there yet. This is quite populous compared to where we are going…” That scared me a little, but I didn’t mind if it looked as pretty as this. “The population of where we are going is about 250 people…” I almost spat out my coffee into the oddly ceramic but off-white, eggshell cup. I hadn’t noticed it before, but these were very expensive and possibly hand made by someone local.

Carefully, I placed the cup back down, making no noise at all. “250 people? Is that it?” My driver nodded back to me.

“God…You can’t tell me you’re going there?” The echo in the empty cafe meant that the older woman, possibly the owner’s wife, standing behind the counter heard us with an intent ear. She walked over to our table, her thin frame almost wobbling with age, she took the tray from beneath our cups and sat down on an empty chair beside us. Folding her arms over the tray, she leaned in. “If you’ve got brains girls, you’ll turn back now. No need going down to visit the pagan country. Leave them to their devil worship.”

I looked at her, a little taken aback. “You can’t say that just because they don’t worship like you do that they worship the devil…”

“You’ll see when you get there if you keep going. When you do see, turn around and walk right back into civilisation…” She stood back up, but continued to whisper. “That village is not a place of travel and excitement. It’s all danger, ritual and cultish behaviour.” She started to walk over to her table. “Trust me girls, I grew up there and I’m glad to be out.”

She grew up there? This thought ran through my mind as she disappeared to the back room and didn’t come out again until we had already sat ourselves in the car. “She grew up there?” I said to my driver. My driver was visible shocked and for the first time, she was no longer smiling at me, but looked with a strange sense of dread that said she already knew it was a mistake bringing me to this village. It was almost like she was starting to apologise but couldn’t quite get the words out.

We were silent for the rest of the journey. The look of dread on my driver’s face remaining a static presence which filled my body with an uneasy itching sensation.

The countryside turned into farms and where there were farms, there were people. Well, only about 250 of them altogether but there were still people. One was ploughing a field using a cow and another was riding a horse. As the car entered, none of them turned around to look. They had all clearly seen a car before, and a mobile phone, and a bunch of other technology. But they simply chose not to use them. I can’t blame them. They spend their days baking, farming and building things whilst I spend my Saturday at least, doomscrolling through Twitter and liking Instagram posts I’m envious of.

The people were dressed not really in old-fashioned clothes, but in clothes that looked like they were made by the local grandmothers of the village. Pale in colour and more than often quite muddy from farming, these clothes seemed more practical than my navy-blue trouser suit with a blazer featuring the emblem of Tommy Hilfiger. I had chosen the wrong outfit for the occasion but sure I could slip into something more appropriate in my suitcase. I was so focused on looking professional I had actually forgotten where I was going. But then again, nobody seemed to notice anyway. We parked up and got out of the car to nobody in particular and then, as we walked down the village market, we came to a house which was clearly made long before the cafe in the previous town we encountered. It was stony and clearly weathered. The roof was half-caved in and the people inside gathered around a stove and were eating something that looked like it was caught and killed this morning - possibly in some unfortunate accident. Not knowing whether I would be able to stomach the food here was one thing but suddenly, exotic backpacking didn’t look so glamorous anymore.

I was used to going to places where I could explore the jungle and then go back to my five star hotel and have a spa evening. This was gruesome and made me heave with anxiety. But, I assured myself, if there were people already living here then I would be able to as well. The family turned to face us and their expressions lit up with joy. “You two must be the backpackers!” The older woman said.

“No no…” My driver started. “It’s just her…” She pointed in my direction and egged me forward. “I’ve just come to see that she’s settled in the right place.” And, tapping me on the back with a lilt, she said goodbye and reminded me of my phone call. Turning away, she went back to the car. I didn’t turn around but the silence across the village market place meant that I heard it leave.

“Well…” The old woman said with a grin. “Why don’t you sit down and have something to eat.” She handed me a wooden bowl and spoon with some sort of soup inside alongside a piece of that roadkill meat. I cautiously began to eat and realised after a few bites that it actually tasted pretty good. Before I knew it, I was wolfing it down after not eating for hours on the country road.

I was shown to my room shortly after lunch where the old woman said that she had gone into a nearby town to purchase a battery-powered lamp just for me to do my work by. “It’s the only electronic thing in the village.” She handed me some spare batteries and explained she didn’t know how to use them but they came free with the lamp. To do this for someone you didn’t know was quite something, this lamp was also essentially useless to the people in the village and so the old woman added that I could take it with me when I left if I wanted.

I went to bed that night in a little fit of anxiety at the state of the village. There was really no way out for these people. There were no clocks and so, people went back in their houses when it became dark outside. They only really ate in their homes if they could and otherwise, spent the rest of the day outdoors. It was odd to see that after living in the city for so long where everyone spends most waking hours inside some kind of building and never really eats at home unless on a boring weekend.

I was more desperate to find out about this celebration that they were going to have whilst I was around - musing about how I could gain access and information, possibly getting some pictures of people being happy, singing and dancing etc. I fell asleep thinking about how there were no cars. The old woman must have walked for hours to get that lamp.

II

I awoke the next morning, made myself presentable and went down the stone stairs to the kitchen where the old woman stood already almost finished with prepping breakfast. I felt bad about the lamp issue but decided not to bring it up. Instead, I offered to help with breakfast. “It is almost done.” She moved several sausages around on the fire stove and seasoned them with herbs from her own herb garden sitting outside the kitchen window on a shelf. Homemade bread meant it was sausage sandwiches for breakfast and gosh, I had never had something so good and so fresh. I felt like I could be full for the rest of the day and as her sons went out to tend to the farm I tilted my head to see the point. They were doing manual labour on farms and so, would require this kind of hearty breakfast. The most it would probably do for me is make me gain twenty pounds whilst visiting.

The old woman wrapped a shawl around her neck and began washing the dishes. She then took a stool and sat beside me around the ancient wooden table. “You have come here to see the festival, I think…” Her voice was slow but kind.

I nodded, trying not to sound overly enthusiastic out of the fear she would be offended by me being an outsider, treating her village like ‘news’. “Yes. I’m quite intrigued by the fact you don’t follow Christianity here and yet, you are present still in Europe. Your village has remained practically immune to Christianisation…” And with those compliments given, she interrupted me with a wagging of her finger.

“Not quite, sweetheart.” She cleared her throat and I clicked the dictaphone in my pocket with anticipation. “We were Christian once… Many years ago… But we abandoned it partially for a new faith with a newer Messiah…”

“Newer? So you’re still Christians?”

“Technically yes. But there is a different man who protects our church.”

This was even more intriguing than the idea of paganism. “Could you tell me about this man?”

She shook her head and I clicked off the dictaphone. “No… But I can show you.”

She rose from her stool and I rose from mine. We exited into the market place where all the shops had been cleared away. Walking down the road, she only spoke once about how she was going to show me a local game. “It’s called ‘draw sticks’ and it’s played at what used to be our church. It is a large part of the festivities and marks the beginning of them. I’ll show you around the place and you can take some photographs whilst I talk to you about our beliefs. The games start when the sun is highest in the sky.”

Everyone was out farming away and gathering fruits and vegetables, it seemed to be a harvest. As I took photographs, some of the locals realised and went into elaborate poses, grinning happily or showing off their harvest fruits. None of them really moved away from the camera and everyone was quite excited for the games ahead. Honestly, to this day I don’t know why they behaved like this - it was quite nice at the time but as the day went on it became more and more frightening.

We continued walking until there was no longer anyone around and we came to a church-like building which was now covered in wood at the entrance. There was a ramp leading into the depths of darkness, like the church’s mouth had opened and swallowed the colour black. The structure was grand, but it looked decayed by time as well, there was nobody keeping the church anymore and the people had abandoned their faith in Jesus Christ for someone else…someone ‘better’. It confused me and the church, though it was a feature of the village, scared me with its gaping hole entrance. Nobody could see in - it was all black, all nothingness.

I walked around it, but couldn’t get any closer than the barriers allowed me to. I took pictures, trying to get a flash on the gaping hole so that I may see what awaited within. The flash went off and I thought I saw something. Nothing appeared on the picture though. Nothing but darkness.

The old woman came back and stood beside me, this time with some books. One of these books was the writings of an old manuscript. “This was gifted to our town for its significance to our history…It teaches us not to want for power.” I took it and held it in my hand. It was the story of a man, a priest rather, who had fed his own people to a monstrous creature. I couldn’t understand the moral it was meant to be teaching but ‘do not want for power for it is destructive to all’ was scrawled on a piece of paper tied together with a string within the book. I checked another book, this one was handwritten and told the story of someone witnessing a ritual. It was a set of instructions and I was nowhere nearer to understanding anything. It featured what I think is the same creature though, a creature who was thought to be the devil.

'and the great teeth came down like claws and ate him alive…'

I breathed in and tried to imagine this happening. My face was clearly too confused though and the old woman took the books out of my hands. “The games are going to begin in half an hour, so you’ll see the preparations happening.” She edged me away from the entrance to the church and, my mind still turning, I saw ten men and ten women walk towards where we were standing. They were met by the village mayor. The mayor was carrying a set of small sticks in his hands. The men and women approached. The women drew their sticks first and then the men. “These are the ten strongest men and the ten fastest women in the village. They must then draw sticks in order to compete.” The crowds were now gathering around. It seemed like all 250 people were here. I asked her what they were competing to do. “The church. They are going to run inside, the gaping door is then sealed by masses of gathered wood. They have to try and find their way out.” I gulped hard.

“Do people usually come back out?”

She shook her head. “Only one person has ever come out. A woman.”

“Do you know where I might find her?”

She shook her head again. “She went missing many years’ ago. Nobody has seen her since.”

The cheering began in the distance at first and then, it got closer as the two chosen people started to stretch their legs and prepare for running. They looked genuinely happy and proud of themselves for being chosen, waving at their family and friends and blowing them kisses as if, from all these years, they would be the ones to survive this ordeal when only one person in history has ever done so. I thought about what awaited them inside, what I saw when my camera flashed and then, struck it out of my mind in fear for the lives of the two young people in front of me. Twenty-year-old Mary and Nineteen-year-old Stephen. Beaming, young, doomed.

They aligned themselves at the starting point, marked by a piece of wood nailed into the floor, they stood either side of it and stretched their legs one final time. Crouching, they prepared. The mayor read a letter of thanks to their protector and, by the wave of a flag, they were gone into the depths of the gaping hole.

In the immediate aftermath, the villagers sealed the hole with the harvest items: trees, fruits, vegetables and everything else they could find until the hole was no longer a hole. I stood and pondered on how they would get out before actually asking the question out loud. “They have to push through…” The old woman replied excited by the prospect of a winner.

“The woman who won.” I began. “How old was she when she competed?”

The old woman turned to me with a questioning look about why I was so curious about someone who didn’t live there anymore. “She was about thirty. Why?”

“I was just wondering about how she managed to push through everything that was laid out in front of the building. That’s a lot of stuff.” I was trying not to sound too invasive.

“I have no idea.”

“How did she go missing?”

The old woman smiled a little bit. “She didn’t even stick around, would you believe it?” She started. “She got out of the church and just kept running. By the time anyone realised, she was already gone. She simply didn’t stop running. She looked terrified apparently.”

She didn’t even stick around to receive her rewards. That was enough for me to ponder over at dinner time where the men discussed who they had bets on to win. “How are you so sure anyone will come out at all?” I asked quietly. They responded that because one person had come out already, there was bound to be another. Nobody though, could tell me the origin of this weird competition or when it was said to be created. Nobody had any idea at all and I’m not sure that I really wanted to find out.

The next day, everyone gathered around the church once more and brought with them an animal. A variation of sheep and goat from a few people, a couple of chickens from others. All of these animals had one thing in common - they were already dead. Coated in blood, the people of the village piled them high in front of the entrance to the church, leaving them there in the scorching heat to rot. I could not get the image of what I had seen when my camera had flashed out of my head. The outline of a shady figure, stocky and hovering. Faceless and terrifying. I shook it off when the old woman started talking to me about this particular part of the celebration. “We have to draw out the spirit of the church to help the competitors…”

“Draw out?” I asked.

“Yes… distract the spirit with the smell of fresh, mixed flesh to eat. A delicacy to the spirit! Much more so than that of a human anyway.”

It was then that the gulp rose in my throat and my forehead began to bead visibly with sweat. My pride was stuck in my larynx and I could barely speak at the realisation of what was about to happen to the competitors - if it hadn’t happened already.

They were going to be eaten.

III

I awoke to the sound of bells chiming and birds humming, someone splashed water lightly over my face and my hair was wet and muddy. “Gosh, it’s time to get you a hot cup of tea and a nice warm bath.” The voice of the old woman came through the ether to me and I opened my eyes fully to see her grinning down at me as I lay on my bed. “You fainted. Gave us all quite a scare.” I propped myself up on my elbows and her son brought me a cup of hot tea and a plate of homemade biscuits. They were delicious but the feeling in the pit of my stomach hadn’t gone away and I could barely eat more than one before my body felt as though it would buckle again.

The old woman sat at the end of my bed after telling one of her sons to fetch some water from the nearby river so that she could heat it up for bathing. This was done simply by placing some warm coals in a box and placing the box in the bath, pouring the water from the buckets over the box of warm coal. My head was spinning and the hot tea, the warm brandy and the homemade ginger biscuits could not cure it. My mouth opened slightly and I was able to get out a couple of words. “Do they know? The competitors, I mean…Do they know?”

The woman nodded. “Yes, they have joined in the years before… Why wouldn’t they know?”

“How are people out here supporting this?” And I think I may have said quite too much because when the water came back, she heated it for my bath and told me she would speak to me afterwards, she had things to do. I placed myself in the bath and though it was warm and cosy, I could barely relax at all.

After getting dressed for bed, I turned on my phone for the first time on the trip, seriously considering phoning my driver to get me the hell out of here. Instead, I looked at the village again and saw that my suspicions were correct. It was listed as having ‘no church’ and so, whatever was going on over there was still unknown to quite a few people. I searched up where I was on Google Maps and - nothing. It’s like this place didn’t exist. “Error” flashed across my screen and I quit the tab. My finger eventually hovered over the ‘driver’ contact, and then the ‘call’ button. But I closed the window and turned off my phone. I didn’t want to look ungrateful for not staying the full time when the old woman had been so nice to me. But I also wanted to find out about the woman who ran away. The only person who ever actually won this damned competition.

That night, I went to sleep easier than the night before. But it was only as I was falling asleep that I thought I had heard something. I thought I had heard something in the distance. Something like a scream.

Determined to find out about this woman who won the competition I asked around the town for anyone who knew her or may be related to her. Some of the villagers then didn’t want to talk about it. They were reluctant to tell an outsider anything of that sort, but the old woman, I knew, would try and answer my questions the best she could. “It was about fifty years’ ago now.” She began. “I wasn’t actually there when she ran out myself, but I was there when she went in. She seemed so happy to be chosen.” She sighed once, then again, rubbing her forehead with her fingers.

“But someone must know her?”

“She was an orphan. We were her friends. Her name was Catherine.”

It was very matter-of-fact and barely any other details were given, but instead of a dictaphone (which I felt bad about using the first time), I had a notebook and pen instead. I didn’t want to cheat these people - it seemed like someone (or something) had already cheated them and had been cheating them for a long time. She continued with her narrative. “Both of her parents were competitors in different years and hadn’t come out alive. She was abandoned. So she lived here, with us.”

My room. Her room.

I looked around at my room once again, the place where she once lived - I wanted to find her somehow and ask her about the madness I was witnessing here. I spent the rest of the afternoon searching the room and looking beneath everything that wasn’t nailed down. There was a clear sign that someone had once lived here but not for a very long time. I was hoping that with the lack of change to the village, that there would be nothing of value thrown out or replaced with something else. It was whilst searching a cupboard that I up-ended an upside-down ceramic mug which held a cockroach long decayed that I found a miniature. It had been there for so long that I couldn’t actually pick it up, it was almost welded to the cupboard’s shelf. The miniature itself was faded a little but I could still make out the face of a very thin woman with dark eyes and darker hair. Her hair was held up by pins and she wore what looked like a tartan dress. It was a painting. The cockroach had decayed so much that I could tell that I was probably very lucky the ceramic mug moved out of the way for me to find this treasure. I didn’t recognise the woman’s face though, she looked like nobody I had ever met in my life and nobody in the village wanted to talk about her. They weren’t related to her, it seemed. An orphan. I tried to imagine myself in that position. I went back to my parents’ house every Christmas and had a nice warm meal made by my mother. I sat in the living room with them as we sipped brandy and watched the countdown to New Years’ Day. All the things this woman would have missed out on because of this cultish competition made my blood boil with anger. I was about to slam the ceramic mug when I realised something strange.

I took my teacup and I looked at the dishes in the cupboards downstairs and none of them even remotely resembled this one. This one was large and eggshell whilst the ones in this house were grey and small. I put the ceramic mug into my bag and sealed it shut, hoping nobody would notice it missing. If I could match the mug with someone else’s I would be able to find out who knew this woman. I would search the markets where people used their mugs for holding tea whilst standing outside selling local produce. I was lucky because there was a huge market on the next morning to unfortunately celebrate the sacrifices of the competition. The screams I had heard the previous night became known to me as the screams of people being eaten alive - I will tell you now, that isn’t a sound that you can forget. Not even as you’re falling asleep.

I searched the whole of the next morning around each and every stall but found no cup or mug resembling the one I had hidden in my bag. Defeated, I went back to the old woman’s house and sat there in my room, staring at it. I understood by now that people had their own ‘family’ mugs and cups, each one looking slightly different in colour and shape to the last. My favourite ones were the family down by the river who had cups and plates that were orange and painted lightly with sunflowers. I took a photograph of the mug with my camera just in case the ceramic was destroyed or taken from me. As I took the photograph, the figure of the old woman appeared at my door. “I’m sorry…” I exclaimed. “It just seemed so different from everything else you have here.”

The old woman smiled and sat down beside me, looking as though she had no intention of telling me off for attempting to steal a mug - something she could tell by the unwrapped crepe paper inside my satchel. “You can have it if you want.” She breathed. “I think I am more surprised that it’s even here.”

“Thank you.” I started. “Did it belong to her?”

The old woman nodded. “Yes. She used to make her own stuff just like everyone else. There are places for that around here. You can make your own cutlery, mugs, plates and whatever else…”

“You chose grey cups and wooden plates and bowls?”

She shook her head. “My great-great grandmother chose them I believe, or someone even before her. I forget how it started. Now, why don’t you come downstairs for dinner. We are having rabbit…” I’d never eaten a rabbit before and was less inclined to start now. My stomach was churning from the thought of the people inside the church being eaten. I was more aware of the fact I had very almost seen what it was. Now that the gaping hole was open again, I was going to sneak out late into the night and find out exactly who, or what, was hiding in there. Maybe that will lead me to the mysterious Catherine. Well, that’s what I thought.

IV

The rabbit was not all too bad, it tasted light and airy and I think the old woman’s fresh cooking probably made it taste better than it actually was. I washed it down with some local ale which I have to say was divine. I don’t understand how so few people living in one area can run things so very smoothly when it comes to making everything themselves. But farming, brewery, gardening and much more are all run, it seems, in a barter economy.

That night I pretended to go to my bed and blew out the candle on my bedside table. I know I had a lamp, but it would have given me away. Instead, I planned to stuff my bed to make it seem like I was asleep before sneaking down the stairs and out the door when I knew that everyone was inside and in their beds. It came to around midnight and I started my walk down the stairs. Stairs of stone don’t creak, but they patter and so, easing your foot down instead of placing it down was a wise idea after taking off your shoes. The night was moonless when I reached the doorway, even better than I suspected - this meant that under the cloak of darkness and whilst wearing a black coat, not many would be able to see me at all.

I closed the door soft and slow behind me and started to do a small walking jog across the grasslands and down the market street where everything had now shut up shop for the night. The night was clear and the sky was a masked black with flickers of stars so far from each other that I was grateful they didn’t give away my position to any on-looker from their bedroom windows. Not before long, I made it to the gaping hole of the church. It was completely desecrated and the bodies of the competitors had not yet been taken out, but instead had been left inside for god knows what reason. I knew they were food, but for who or what I had no idea.

My head began to throb with fear and anxiety. I edged forward, pushing the gates. They squeaked beneath my hand and yet, I continued to move. I did not stop moving until I got to the mouth of the church. I thought I had heard something rustle behind me but I ignored it for the fear it might be the one thing I did not want to see. I kept edging forward until finally, I was at the slope where the runners had ran up and into the darkness, their fate sealed in harvest and blood.

“Is that you, missy?” I heard a call from behind me. It was the old woman. I spun around on my heels and had never been so glad to see her in my life. It was a huge mistake coming here by myself, I thought. But I didn’t think about whether she would be mad at me as I ran down the pathway, unsure of whether anything was chasing me, to greet her. “Gosh, I went to give you some tea for your fainting but you were gone. I followed the footsteps in the dirt and figured you might be down here. The scene of the crime where you fell…” She held me in her arms like she was my mother.

“I’m sorry… I needed some answers though and I simply could not sleep without them.”

She nodded and smiled, not looking even the slightest bit angry. “I know” She replied. “Let me take you somewhere where I could give you some answers…” Apprehensive in thought, I pushed my body forward unknowing of where I might head to next.

We walked up a winding pathway and further than where my driver had parked when we arrived. The old woman led me down a forest path and out again and finally, towards another rough looking church which was newer and had no gaping hole at the front. There was no steeple though and the whole thing looked as though it was made on some kind of budget. It was still old enough for it not to be made either in my lifetime or the lifetime of the old woman standing beside me. She brushed a strand of grey hair from her face and pushed at the door.

The room was empty, cold and dust particles could be seen in the air. When the old woman heaved the door, she talked to me about how this place was only used once a week. She shut it behind us but I still couldn’t quite make anything out. It was the middle of the night and though there were windows, there was no moonlight coming in through them. I immediately lamented the moonless night I was so eagerly looking forward to. The old woman walked ahead of me and started lighting candles - she clearly knew the place well enough that she knew where all the candle stumps were in the darkness. As the room began to light up I saw something really quite strange, remembering something the woman had said to me about the villager’s belief systems. They are technically Christian though they don’t believe in Christ anymore.

The room lit up some more and now I could make out a statue about a foot or two taller than myself, standing with arms rigid by its sides. I couldn’t quite tell whether it was made of stone or not and I was too frightened to touch it. It was a statue of some kind of mythical beast. It had an almost abnormally long body and a stare that was wide-eyed, staring off into the distance. What intrigued me the most with a horrid sense of dread was the fact the statue’s face had these teeth that were so large and sharp that it could not close its mouth. Instead, it’s jaw lay open to accommodate these long knife-like things sticking out from top and bottom.

As the candles lit up other parts of the room, I saw various items that were clearly dedicated to this statue in front of me. Is this what they worship? I found myself thinking. The old woman came to stand beside me and my eyes traced the ceiling where gargoyles hung with devilish faces. I landed my gaze upon the walls where that same line was written ‘DO NOT WANT FOR POWER’ in large, block capitals - dressed entirely in black. “What is this?” I muttered under my breath, supposing the old woman would not hear me. But she did.

“This is where we come to pray every weekend.” She walked me around the room. Apart from the statues and gargoyles, the lettering and the stained glass depicting men being eaten alive by this beast - the whole thing looked like a regular church. It had pews and a lectern and everything else you may find in say, an old Catholic Church in a Medieval town somewhere. “This is our leader - the one we pray and give offering to.” She pointed to the statue of the beast.

I stared at the statue not knowing what to say and realised that this must have been the thing I saw when my camera flashed, the thing I was about to see in the gaping hole of the other church, the thing that was eating the competitors. “Why does your leader eat people?” My voice quivered slightly with fear.

“It is our offering to him. Once a year, we offer up two people.”

With that, I felt something in my brain snap. The competition wasn’t a competition to get out, it was a competition to see if anyone could. It was designed to fail. The whole thing about ‘competing’ was just a farce. It was only there to feed the beast and the beast could not be fed if anyone escaped. There was never meant to be winners, only dead bodies, only sacrifices. Catherine didn’t run because she was afraid of the beast. She ran because she was afraid of the people.

“So nobody is meant to actually get out of the church when they run inside?” I spoke slow, so that I might rattle my mind with whatever answer she was about to give.

“No, they aren’t.” I knew it.

“So Catherine…”

“So Catherine…” She started, repeating after me like an incantation. “So Catherine was a deviant. She had been so for a while and so, when she ran out though I didn’t see it, I know there were people that watched her as she continued running off into the distance.”

“She kept running because now she was trying to escape the people who wanted to feed her to the beast. There were never meant to be any survivors. The whole thing is just a game…”

“Yes…” She smiled. “The games… that’s why we call them that…”

“Then why play along with the idea that someone is going to get out someday? You know they aren’t coming back…”

“It’s part of the game, the festivity, the ritual.”

I stared at the statue of the beastly thing in front of me and thought about what I had seen in that gaping hole once more. These people were born into a village and not given a choice of what to believe in. Any particular year, they could lose their lives in a strange and wicked ritual which ended with them being eaten alive. Every single year, the same thing happened. Well, except for the year that involved Catherine. The ceramic mug still sat wrapped in crepe paper in my satchel. When we made our way back through the village, I asked one last time if I could see the church with the gaping hole. The old woman declined. “The creature does not need to be disturbed.”

The creature. That’s what they called it.

V

The next evening was dull, the entire day went without a single sighting of the creature though I stood outside the gaping hole all day. I was scared that maybe it had left for some reason, but my camera flash still picked up something moving inside. The bars were now set too high on the fence, I could no longer climb over and so had to peer through the gaps with my disposable camera, hoping to get some clarity.

I paced my room after dinner, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet, realising that I was not careful enough as the old woman’s room was directly beneath mine, she would have heard me moving the night I tried to escape for the church. I tucked myself into bed and started working on a story of the festivities, unsure about how I was going to make this look like a positive event when people were willingly being sacrificed to be eaten alive by a monstrous thing living on the edge of town. I had secretly taken some pictures from inside their place of worship and put the disposable camera with them into my bag - I couldn’t decide what to do with those either.

Again I switched on my phone and hovered my finger over the ‘call’ button for my driver, knowing she would be here bright and early the next day if I were to say something now. I flinched a bit, bit down on my tongue and held the button. “Hi, are you ready to be picked up?” Came through the line and then, “I’ll be there in the morning, make sure you’re packed up and ready to go at 8am…” I felt a tinge of guilt and sadness for leaving the old woman and her lovely family early and I understood that there were some things this town didn’t want to talk about, but I couldn’t stay in this weird world any longer. I don’t think my brain could handle finding out anything else about this place.

I went downstairs, unable to sleep and the old woman was sitting reading some passages from a family album, written possibly by her own parents. She asked me where I was going and I said that I would go for a walk by the river, the opposite direction from the gaping hole I had last been seen wandering off to. I was telling the truth and she could tell. I wrapped myself in a scarf from my bag and walked off, I knew the river would be cold this time of night and would probably bring me some mental clarity.

As I walked down towards it, I thought I heard some sort of rustle in the bushes, but turning to see it was only a fox, I carried on down the village road to the river. I sat beside it, cold and clear, it was far cleaner than the rivers I had seen around the city. They were really man-made canals, but I liked to pretend they were rivers. I sighed a deep breath of dry air, emptying my lungs of anything that could possibly be fogging up my brain. I heard something behind me and assumed that it was probably just the old woman following me to make sure I had actually gone to the river. I placed my bag down beside me, got out the ceramic mug and took a careful look at it.

“She hid beneath the floorboards.” A droning voice came from over my shoulder, clearly not that of the old woman. I carefully turned my entire body around, shuffling in my seat and stared up at something I couldn’t possibly believe. The creature towered before me with yellowing eyes. Blackened clothing, cloak and sharp, disorganised teeth like swords that had been tied together. The jaw did not close, but lay open so the teeth were constantly exposed. He would not have been able to close his mouth anyway. It was both terrifying and intriguing at the same time.

“Catherine?” I asked, my voice shivering from both cold and fear.

“Yes.” He edged closer but his feet did not move. It was as though he hovered. “She found a slit in the floor and put herself there until the nighttime. Then, she ran.”

“Were you upset that you couldn’t eat her.”

He shook his head with a creak. It was here I noticed that he had no eyelids. His eyes just stared into the nothingness. He was not looking at me, nor was he looking at anything in particular. “Do you know where she might be now?” I asked, worried he might still be looking for her.

“She escaped on foot.” He turned to leave. “She couldn’t have gone far.” He started to hover away from me into the night. “She must have ran for days.”

It didn’t make sense. It had been fifty years and by now, she could be halfway to Mexico. The creature knew that Catherine wasn’t far but didn’t go to find her not because she was too far away, but because she had outsmarted him. She didn’t want for any power, she wasn’t doing any ritual, she just wanted to run away. Even when her parents were dead, she wanted to escape. This was her only way to do so. She didn’t care about the creature - she just wanted to leave. She must have been planning that for ages. When I looked up, the creature was gone. An impossibility but at this point, I could hardly believe anything that had happened here in the last few days - this was just another thing to question and mull over.

I think I was surprised with myself. Once I had met the creature I realised that he would not actually hurt me. But this only raised more questions in my mind about why and what this creature actually wanted. It raised a question as to why he knew that Catherine hid beneath the floorboards and never bothered to go after her at all. It raised the question as to why he eats the competitors every year. There are not many children in this village and my suspicions are that if this competition continues as the birth rate falls, there won’t be enough people to choose from eventually. I can’t say precisely but there is something not quite right here. There is something that he knows that the villagers do not.

My driver arrived early the next morning, parked in the same place she had left me when I got here. The old woman saw me out and said goodbye and as I got into the car, the driver stated we would stop at the same coffee shop to talk over how my trip had been. I must have been noticeable pale because when I shut the door and she saw my face, her smile became slightly crooked, as if she were forcing it just for me.

We drove through the countrysides and trees, the various hills and fields laying either side of the car for a while before we came to the coffee shop. There was yet again, nobody there. The shop was darker than usual because it was still technically sunny outside and they probably wanted natural sunlight as opposed to electronic. How I was glad to be back in civilisation again, not having to see candles everywhere. It was then that I realised I had left the electric lamp behind - I still wonder where the old woman bought it from. There were no shops selling those items around here and there was definitely no person I can think of that would give up a lamp like that.

We went into the cafe and sat at the same table we had sat at before when arriving in the opposite direction. We both ordered the same thing and received our drinks quickly as there were no other customers. That was when I held the ceramic mug in my hand and thought deeply about it for a second or so. “What’s wrong?” The thin old lady behind the counter said. “Don’t like the coffee?” I shook my head, my eyes widened.

“It’s not the coffee.” I must have sounded crazy and I reached for my satchel and pulled out the exact same ceramic mug. “What did you take with you when you left?” I turned to look at her, my eyes still widened with madness and longing to know more.

She breathed a sigh. “I took everything I could.” Realising that I knew, she didn’t really try to hide anything. “I ran home first and bagged all my things and then took off before anyone realised where I was going.” She took the ceramic mug in her hand.

“Looks like you forgot one…” I smiled.

She shook her head explaining she left it there on purpose, she was hoping that her friends wouldn’t forget her. “I left it on the windowsill of my room.” I told her it was in the cupboard upside down over a painted miniature of her. She smiled a sad smile and then turned away from me for a moment. “I ran away because I couldn’t find anything useful there. After my parents died in the competition in consecutive years, I had a hard time finding my place. All I could do was make coffee…”

I listened with intent, hoping to write it down or record it somehow, but I was too focused on actually hearing the story and forgot about the recording very quickly. “He let you go…” I explained that I had met him by the river and that he had said she was hiding beneath the floorboards and yet, the only way he would know that is if he already knew where she was.

“I met him too.” She started. “It was soon after I ran off. He told me I’d done nothing wrong and that he wouldn’t hurt me but, that there was a point to this madness. I’m guessing you’ve been to the church where the ‘game’ happens, right?” I nodded. “Well, there’s a reason that church is destroyed. It was a very long time ago now, long before anyone around here was born or even their great-grandparents were.” She sat down on a stool beside me. “Here’s the deal, missy…” Her voice dropped to a whisper and for some reason I only just then remembered my driver who looked on in horror. “Don’t go chasing shadows. Don’t go digging up the past. You’re not going to like what you find there. There are some things about that godforsaken village that are best left to the creature. He knows what he’s doing.”

“What do you mean?”

She stood up to leave us for the kitchen. “Nothing much. But I’ll leave you with this thought. The village used to have over four thousand people. Now, it has only two-hundred and fifty. Something was rotten there once and that church is testament to it.” She disappeared into a back room, I assumed to make more coffee or at least wash some cups and glasses.

My driver did not say anything but just looked at me with a pale face and a slack jaw. Eventually, when she did speak, she asked me about the things I’d seen. I handed her my notebook and the camera so she could see for herself. She gave it back to me, placing it on the table as though they were the heaviest things in the world. She didn’t look through it all and I don’t blame her. I don’t think she wanted to know much else.

After around an hour or so, we got up to leave and I thought I would give the ceramic mug I’d stolen from the room in the village (and it was, technically stolen) to its rightful owner. I brushed myself off and walked towards the back of the counter with the mug, what I found was strange to say the least. The coffee maker had been left behind and there were no dishes in the dishwasher or in the cupboards. Every single cupboard was open wide and one had even fallen to the floor, smashed. The fire exit had been swung open and a car that had made tracks in the back parking spaces was missing. I breathed out into the air, which was much colder now. The smell of an engine lingered in the open space. I left the ceramic mug on the table where we had sat drinking cappuccino.

It would be hours before I made it back to actual civilisation. The city waited for me and everything was going on as if I’d never left at all. Like Narnia, it was like I was gone for years in my mind, visibly aged upon return. But, thrown back into my old life, I was tossed back into my old body and navy blue trouser suit. Nothing had changed and it seemed as though nobody had noticed I was gone. I went back to work the next day and presented all my evidence to my boss about what had happened. “Well…” He said. “Where is this ‘Catherine’ person?” I simply shrugged my shoulders telling him that she ran off and I no longer knew where she was. My boss looked at me as though I was speaking a foreign language. I didn’t want to write this story. “You look a little run down from all of this…” I replied that though I was, I was ready to do something new. It was a lie. I wasn’t ready. It would be a few weeks later where I’d see the cockroach dragged into the gaping hole in the wall by the two ants and decide from then on, I could no longer take it.

I quit my job that evening.

That was it. It was over.